Perhaps it was being put deep under by the anaesthesia, for I am told it really is a little like dying. Well the closest one comes to dying without actually... dying; when you are sedated enough for them to cut into you. Maybe it was that which dropped me deep into myself, enough to touch the stuff that really mattered. The debris hidden behind decades of conditioning shot to the top.

'Near death experience' or NDE research remains a key divide between religion and science - can consciousness function independently of the human body, and therefore, survive bodily death? Could this then prove the existence of a 'soul', and confirm ghosts, plus other paranormal or spiritual phenomena?